FrankenSimmons
by TheLateNightStoryteller
Summary: Has Simmons created a monster? Or is Fitz just being paranoid? A FitzSimmons Halloween Two-Parter. :D.
1. Chapter 1

This story takes place sometime after 1x06 F.Z.Z.T. but before 1x16 The End of the Beginning

It is canon to the best of my knowledge (as in not AU, though those are fun :D)

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good (I dunno why, it looked like that should go there, I'm not really)

:O :O :O

* * *

><p>"I'm telling you, it's a monster," Fitz asserted, walking down the stairs towards the sitting room with Skye. "I can't go anywhere near it or it glares me with those horrible, beady little eyes. It's planning on killing me, I'm sure of it."<p>

Skye paused at the bottom of the staircase and he turned to see her eyebrows raised skeptically. "The rat?"

"It isn't just any rat Skye it's... it's a monster rat!" He told her, waving his arms in the air. "I have no idea what she was thinking, inserting DNA from those giant metal monsters that attacked New York into a rodent-"

"She did what?" Skye exclaimed. "That's... a little messed up."

"Thank you!" he shouted, his arms once again waving wildly. "But of course Simmons was _sure_ nothing could go wrong. 'Oh, but Fitz, I need to collect samples of this protein for analysis, I'm not turning the rat into a monster. It's science Fitz, not some old horror novel,'" he mimicked his friend in a high pitched voice. "She's unleashed something onto us, I know she has!"

"It's in a cage though, right?" Skye inquired, far more relaxed than she should have been with the impending mutant-rat massacre looming over them, as she walked over to the sofa and half sat, half fell onto it.

Fitz took the seat across from her with a bit more care for the state of the furniture and pulled Operation out from under the table.

Poor, foolish Skye was still convinced she could beat his steady hands. Maybe he'd go easy on her, so as not to damage her pride too deeply.

"It's in a cage _for now_," he answered ominously.

Rain poured down in sheets just outside the window and lightning flashed, followed by rumbling thunder.

:O :O :O

"It's alive!" Simmons exclaimed excitedly, staring down at her formerly-believed-dead tissue sample with glee and glancing behind her, expecting a thumbs up or a mumble of congratulations before she remembered Fitz wasn't in the lab with her anymore.

A slight sense of emptiness took hold of the room for a brief moment when she noted his absence but she quickly shrugged it off and returned to work.

Her friend had cleared out when the rat, Lev (short for Leviathan, the name given to the enormous living metal ships whose DNA he had inside each of his cells) had began growling at him. Admittedly, it was odd behaviour for a rat, but far from threatening considering the creature weighed less than a kilogram. The worst it could do was give him a nasty bite. Which, to be fair, would hurt, however it would first be required to escape from it's enclosure, an unlikely (though possible) scenario.

She suspected most of Fitz's apprehension stemmed from the fact that she'd created, what he described as, 'an evil Chitauri monster-rodent hybrid which would surely kill them all.'

She loved the clever engineer to bits, but sometimes his paranoia flew a little off the handle, much to her exasperation. Lev wasn't any more dangerous than the other rats, at least, she was pretty sure he wasn't.

He _was_ being a smidge aggressive with his companions, baring his teeth at them often enough that they were now huddled almost comically in the corner of the cage, keeping their distance.

"You wont make any friends that way Lev," she scolded, opening the top to lift him out, deciding that it would be better for everyone if he had his own space. She took him gently, with practiced hands, in a way he'd responded docilely to several times before, expecting him to be calm.

Instead, the small creature surprised her by letting out an outraged squeak and turning it's head to dig it's front teeth through the glove and into her hand creating a sharp, tearing jolt of pain that caused Simmons to reflexively let go of him as she cried out, dropping him onto the floor so he could scurry away through the sliding door Fitz had left open.

"Ughh!" She hissed, frustrated and dreading the smug expression on her partner's face when he found out his predictions had, at least in part, come true. Quickly, she shut the top of the cage and bolted after the furry fiend, hopeful she could catch him and tuck him safely back into a cage before any prone-to-big-headedness friends she had found out they'd been right (in part).

:O :O :O

To her dismay, Simmons ran into Fitz and Skye in the sitting room early on in her pursuit.

"Be careful," Fitz cautioned, taking a sip from a bottle of cream soda and watching Skye slowly ease the tweezers into the funnybone slot.

"Stop talking," she answered, mimicking his tone and he frowned at her as he placed down the bottle.

"Er... hello," Simmons greeted, waving at them and trying in vain to think of a way out of admitting that Lev had escaped.

"Simmons, your thumb!" Fitz cried, eyes widening with worry as he stood and glided over to her. He leaned in to examine it, not noticing that he was invading her personal space in his distraction. "What happened?" He asked sympathetically, meeting her gaze.

She sighed. There was no way around it.

"Lev bit me," she confessed.

"Lev?" Skye questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"The rat," Simmons explained.

"Oh... _that_ rat?" She inquired, intrigued and getting to her feet. "Fitz told me about your experiment."

Simmons nodded, pressing her lips together so her mouth formed a line, and glanced at Fitz, bracing for a gloating remark.

He was still staring at her thumb.

"You need to clean that," he murmured, concern clear in his expression.

He was right. In her haste to cover up her mistake, Simmons had forgotten, but the throbbing, oozing digit really could use a rinse out and a plaster.

"C'mon," he said, motioning for her to follow him.

"Wait... is that thing rabid now?" Skye wondered, following behind. "Simmons are you OK?"

"I'm fine," she assured her, smiling.

"Are you sure?" Fitz fretted, keeping pace beside her, almost jostling her shoulder and straining for a view of the bite. "You have no idea what that little devil is capable of. What if he's venomous? What if-" he shook his head. "We should give you a full examination."

"I really don't think that's necessary," Simmons objected, rolling her eyes at him. His concern was endearing (though a little exaggerated) but she knew what the rat was capable of, or at least she knew it wasn't _venomous_. Did he think she went into her experiments blind to what the possible outcomes were? That she didn't monitor them at all? There were surprises, certainly, but-

"You sure you want me tagging along for that _full_ examination?" Skye teased, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"I didn't mean-" Fitz began, scarlet.

"You could start looking for Lev, if you don't mind," Simmons agreed, overlapping him, and the pair stared at her, Skye grinning widely and Fitz somewhere between mortified and... something else. "He didn't mean that kind of examination," she clarified impatiently, clicking her tongue at them. "Stop it, you're making poor Fitz blush," she demanded, pausing her steps and tilting her head chiddingly.

"I- it's just... I'm not blushing," Fitz objected, turning an even deeper shade of red.

"Sorry," Skye apologized, batting Fitz on the shoulder and appearing sincere. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I wasn't embarrassed," he replied swiftly.

"Sure," she agreed, not sounding entirely convinced. "I'm gonna go look for Frankenrat."

"I really wish you wouldn't call him that," Simmons protested. She wasn't some mad scientist robbing graves for spare parts, just to prove she could. She was trying to understand an alien species so that they could better protect themselves against them, should they return.

"Frankenstein is the scientist," Fitz informed her matter-of-factly, his and Simmons' voices once again overlapping. "So, really, it'd be FrankenSimmons."

Simmons would have crossed her arms had her thumb not been tender, but she thought the look she gave Fitz was enough to make up for what her injury prevented.

"It's a common mistake," Fitz defended, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Uh huh," she replied, shaking her head. "Let's put something on this before I catch monster-rat."

"Don't joke about things like that Simmons," Fitz warned seriously.

:O :O :O

They stood in the kitchen, first aid kit open on the counter, a wet cloth in Fitz's hands and Simmons bravely holding out the thumb that damn rat had mangled.

The brute.

Fitz was doing his best not to gloat, poor Simmons was injured already and possibly filled with whatever toxic, horrible things resided inside the dangerous creature she'd created, but he _had_ been right about monster-rat.

It wasn't her fault. She was an optimist, an explorer, always ready to travel down a new road, open up new doors, and he loved that about her, her passion for discovery and wonder at the world around her, but there was such a thing as going too far, crossing the line.

And Simmons might have just set a toe over it with her rabid rat from hell. He'd known it was trouble from the very start, from the first moment it had set those beady monster eyes on him and snarled like something out of a deep dark hell-hole.

Simmons flinched as he cleaned out the cut, thankfully not too deep, with the cloth, but didn't complain or protest.

"You're sure you don't want-" he asked again, glancing up at her face once he'd wiped away the blood and (probably) the rat saliva.

"Fitz I'm fine," she insisted, only a little impatiently, giving him a small, encouraging smile.

He turned his attention back to what he was doing, gently wrapping the wound. "OK," he mumbled.

Maybe he was being paranoid, overprotective even, but the memory of her pale, ashen face and the awful sense of helplessness and impending loss that had come along with it, still haunted his nightmares sometimes like a malevolent ghost, and he understood why he felt the way he did.

"I'm sure you know what you're doing," he conceded before tenderly pressing his lips against the fabric. "That should do it," he told her, then froze as a jolt ran up his spine, realizing what he'd done.

It was something he'd learned from his mother, a gesture of love that meant 'I wish you a good recovery,` but he'd never used it on anyone before and he wondered why he had now.

If he were honest with himself, he knew, but Fitz wasn't being entirely honest with himself, not yet anyway.

To his relief, Simmons smiled again, narrowing toaster warm eyes, and briefly brushed the first two fingers of her good hand against his cheek.

"Thank you," she said quietly and he wasn't entirely sure if she was thanking him for agreeing with her, taking care of her injury or the kiss (he was about 99.9% certain it wasn't the last one), but he nodded and smiled.

"You're welcome."

"Let's go find Lev," she invited, packing up the first aid kit and rinsing out the cloth before leaving it to dry.

Fitz nodded and helped her clean up. He trusted her, but he really did wish she'd at least test her blood for any sign of infection.

She was smart and incredibly well prepared but that didn't mean nothing could go wrong, didn't mean she needn't be cautious because, sometimes, when you opened new doors there was a price to pay.

:O :O :O

* * *

><p>Stay tuned for part 2: <em>Fitz is paranoid, Skye is not helping, all Simmons wants is her rat back - <em>coming soon.

There is a reference to the science fiction series Fringe in this chapter (and will be one in the next), words of caution from my favourite mad scientist Walter Bishop "When you open new doors, there is a price to pay."

The :O :O :O is suppose to be three faces saying Whooooo, because this is a Halloween story.

Lev doesn't look like the picture I drew, but maybe Fitz pictures him that way XD.


	2. Chapter 2

They met Skye back where she and Fitz had left their game. She hadn't had any luck tracking down Lev and it was a big plane, he could be anywhere.

A big plane filled with wiring and sensitive equipment the little animal could chew on, damaging the Bus and potentially killing himself in the process, losing Simmons months of work and possibly grounding them.

It was a disaster.

"There must be some way for us to track him," Simmons said, narrowing her eyes and searching her mind for a solution.

"You could always look for angry rat villagers with pitchforks," Skye joked.

Fitz chuckled but Simmons shook her head disapprovingly.

"He isn't a monster," she told them. "He's just a rat with-"

"-monster DNA in his cells being transcribed and translated into monster proteins," Fitz put in, raising his eyebrows.

"-complex alien compounds in his system which I'd _like_ to get back," she finished.

Another flash of lightning lit the night outside the small windows of the plane, followed by low rumbling thunder.

"The weather's right for monster making," Skye grinned, having far too much fun feeding into Fitz's paranoia. "Didn't that Frankenstein guy just need a good jolt to bring a corpse back from the dead?"

"That part of the story is said to be inspired by galvanism," Simmons let her know. "But it isn't actually possible."

"Galvanism?" Skye asked, tilting her head.

"A muscle contracting when stimulated by an electric current," Fitz explained. "When it was first discovered that that it was possible to make corpses move with a 'good jolt' some people believed you could bring back the dead using electricity but-"

"-it's not life," Simmons went on. "If you shock a dead frog's legs they might twitch but he isn't going to get up and hop away, off to eat flies again."

"I guess I'll scratch lightning off my list of ways to resurrect people," Skye kidded.

"They'd smell awful anyway," Fitz told her, scrunching his nose. "Old and decayed, it's horrible."

"Not that you ever stay in the lab long enough to really get a good whiff," Simmons mused.

"I can usually smell it through the door," he countered, still making a face and Simmons was torn between annoyance and amusement. "You don't need to be a bloodhound to detect the stench."

"We could use a bloodhound," Skye pointed out.

"Yes," Simmons agreed. "But we don't have a lot of time and where are we going to get-"

A thought suddenly occurred to her and, by the expression on Fitz's face she surmised he'd had it too.

"We could modify it," he said.

"Change the scent it's set to track," Simmons agreed.

They grinned at each other.

"You have an idea, don't you?" Skye guessed.

"Yeah," "We do," they answered, turning to face her synchronously.

:O :O :O

Twenty minutes later, the trio was back with a small glass enclosure for Lev and the odorless scent tracking device had been altered, set to track Lev's odor-full scent using a few hairs he'd left behind on his favourite toy.

"Are you sure those hairs were his?" Fitz questioned as they prepared to turn on the machine.

"None of the other rats would risk going after Lev's toy," Simmons told him, starting it up.

Fitz raised his eyebrows at her, wearing his best 'I told you so' expression.

"That doesn't mean he's a monster," Simmons protested, rolling her eyes. "He just... isn't very social."

"Maybe he's lonely," Skye put in, peeking over their shoulders as the device began to scan the area. "Why don't you build him a bride, you know, like in the movie-"

"For the last time I am not Dr. Frankenstein!" Simmons exclaimed. "I'm a scientist doing an experiment- a completely reasonable-"

"There he is," Fitz interrupted, poking the screen. "Damn it, it looks like he's gotten up into the wiring."

They followed the signal until the flashing dot told them they were right under their escapee and the three of them stared up a the ceiling where he was.

"So... do we drill a hole?" Skye wondered.

"There's a hatch, to get in," Fitz told her. "I can go up..."

"No, he's my rat," Simmons objected, shaking her head. "I'll go get him."

"I know the wiring better," Fitz argued. "I'm less likely to electrocute myself."

"_Less_ likely?" Skye questioned worriedly, turning to him in alarm.

"I'll be fine," he assured her, lowering his gaze to meet hers and smiling encouragingly.

"Yes, you will, because I'll be the one going up," Simmons added, glaring at him.

Fitz sighed. "Simmons..."

"Why don't you guys do that rock, paper, scissors thing?" Skye suggested.

That did seem fair.

"Alright," Simmons agreed, holding out a fist.

"Fine," Fitz replied. They needed to hurry, however much he feared Simmons going after the rat alone and possibly electrocuting herself in the process (if the little monster didn't get her first).

"Ro Sham Bo," the chanted, waving their fists.

He landed on paper and Simmons chose rock.

He wrapped his fingers over her fist. "I go then."

Simmons didn't seem happy about that but she nodded. "Be careful," she requested, eyes on his hand which still held her fist like a blanket.

"Of course I'll be careful," he promised, touched by her concern.

"And don't hurt my rat," she warned, handing him the enclosure and pulling her hand away.

"Of course not," he answered sarcastically, taking it. "Wouldn't want to injure the blood thirsty monster."

"I think in the movie he just strangled people," Skye told him cheerfully. "So there really wasn't a lot of blood."

"Thank you for that Skye," he frowned and she shrugged as if to say 'you're welcome'.

"Hey, monster-rat can't strangle you," she reminded him holding up her hands, making a grabbing motion with them. "His little paws are too small."

He shook his head disapprovingly as he walked away to find the hatch. "I'm sure Lev will think of something," he called over his shoulder and he could feel Simmons' eye roll burning into his back.

:O :O :O

Fitz crawled past the wiring, grateful for the headlight he'd brought with him shining a beam to guide the way.

It would have been terrifying, trying to find the little beast in the dark, he was already unnerved by the cramped space. His enemy had a clear advantage, being so tiny and ready to scurry like... well like a rat.

"Have you found him yet?" Simmons demanded over the coms.

"Not since you asked me thirty seconds ago," Fitz answered grouchily, coughing on the thick dust. "We really should clean in here more often, all this dust can't be good for the- wait I see something."

Something small was running up ahead of him, little footsteps clapping on the metal floor.

"Is it Lev?" Simmons asked excitedly. "Hurry up! Go get him!"

"That's what I'm doing," he told her, crawling ahead as fast as he could. "I thought you were more worried about me electrocuting myself, don't go rushing me."

"Hurry up, and don't get electrocuted," she clarified.

He grumbled under his breath. "Yeah, I'm on it."

She was right, he really did need to hurry. The rat was quick and, wherever he was going, he was in a rush to get there.

Fitz followed him for almost three minutes, checking the scanner when he lost sight of him. Finally he cornered him at a dead end, placing the cage down to block his escape and attempting to shoo him inside.

The little monster wasn't at all thrilled about being herded back into an enclosure and (though Simmons denied it) had a special grudge against Fitz. He growled at him, snapping its fangs when Fitz's hand came too close. Stubborn beast.

"Get. In. The. Cage!" Fitz growled back, becoming increasingly frustrated as the rat dodged away from him, charging at him every so often and attempting to take a chunk out of his hand, until the last word was shouted out in aggravation.

He must have startled it with how loud he was because the little creature squeaked in distress and, to Fitz's horror, erupted into a hot, orange ball of flames.

:O :O :O

"Hurry up and don't get electrocuted," Simmons clarified, rolling her eyes as her partner grumbled a response. "I should have gone," she told Skye, muting the coms so Fitz wouldn't hear.

"He'll be fine," Skye assured her. "You'll have your monster-rat and your Fitz back before you know it."

"He's not..." Simmons protested, blushing. "I mean... I wouldn't call him..."

Skye raised her eyebrows. "He's gone up into a freaky cramped space, chasing down something he's terrified of, just so you can have your experiment back," she told her. "He's your guy."

"And so we don't break the Bus," Simmons added feebly but Skye continued to look skeptical. She sighed. "Yeah, he's my guy and maybe I'm his too... or... girl. But don't tell him I said that OK? He'd take it the wrong way, you know how easily embarrassed he is."

Skye grinned, looking smug, but she nodded in agreement.

What the _right_ way to take it would be exactly, she didn't know, but she wasn't going to admit that out loud, not yet anyway.

"Get. In. The. Cage!" Fitz shouted over the coms and Simmons was about to tell him to keep his voice down, that he was going to frighten Lev, when the coms went dead and a scream made it's way through the walls.

"Fitz?!" She exclaimed.

"What happened?" Skye demanded.

Simmons shook her head. "We need to go get him."

In silent consent, the two of them sped off towards the hatch.

:O :O :O

They found Fitz dropping ungracefully out of the hatch, cradling his hand against his body and looking livid.

"He exploded!" He raged, sounding almost offended. "The bloody monster turned into a hot ball of flaming death right before my eyes! Don't worry, he didn't hurt any part of the Bus, it wasn't that big an explosion. Though, he did burn away a bit of the dust." He added the final thought as if stating a bright side.

"What?!" Skye gasped.

Simmons groaned, angry that her experiment was ruined and cursing herself for letting him escape in the first place. There went months of work, literally up in flames. And now she'd never know why it had happened or what had interfered with their coms. Well... unless she made another one. It _was_ curious-

"Poor Lev," Skye lamented, pulling her out of her thoughts, "all he wanted was a bride, or maybe some tiny rat villagers to strangle."

"Poor me!" Fitz objected, showing her the hand he'd been keeping safe against his body. "Look at this! I wont be able to shower properly for a week!"

"Let me see that," Simmons demanded, stepping forward to look it over. He'd been hurt? Why hadn't he said anything? She turned his hand over to see. The skin was red and starting to peel but it wasn't too bad. "You'll be OK," she assured him kindly, being as gentle as she could around the injury.

"It still bloody hurts," he grumbled.

"It must," she agreed, sympathetic. "Let's run some water over it. C'mon." She gently tugged at his arm until he began following her.

"I'm going to go get some candy," Skye told them. "All this horror movie drama is making me want treats. You've got this, don't you Simmons?" She insured, already walking away.

"We're fine," she assured her.

"Can you save me some?" Fitz called after her.

:O :O :O

Simmons turned on the tap and let Fitz put his hand under it, watching him relax as the cool water soothed the burn.

Stupid rat, blowing itself up just to make his life miserable. It wasn't as if he needed his hands _to do his job_. If he wanted to explode so badly, Lev could have at least waited until Fitz was clear, but _of course_ he hadn't. The damn thing had hated him, it had wanted him dead but had settled on savagely burned.

"I'm sorry," Simmons told him, likely misreading his expression, thinking he was angry with her.

"It wasn't your fault," he objected.

She smiled at him but it was forced, she still looked guilty.

"I keep remembering what agent Darveau said to us, back at the Academy," Simmons said quietly.

"You're working with someone else today, stop complaining about it?" Fitz guessed, trying to recall actual words of wisdom from their old professor.

"No, not that," she dismissed, shaking her head. "What he told us before we left, he said-"

"Don't be afraid to cross the line," they finished together, because Fitz had remembered.

Simmons nodded. "He meant be brave, take risks, try new things but..." she looked away. "If it means I could hurt someone... that I could lose you," she shook her head. "I don't think I want to cross the line."

Fitz frowned, shaking his head. "You have to though," he told her. "Maybe not with mutant rats," he added quickly, not wanting to encourage a sequel to monster-rat (Bride of Monster-Rat?). "But agent Darveau was right, we need to take risks, try new things, especially you."

She looked up at him, confused. "Why especially me?"

He grinned at her. "Because you're the one who's going to make that discovery, push forward, _save _lives with what you do."

She smiled. "Especially you too," she told him, melting him under the warmth of her gaze.

"Especially both of us together," he added and her smile widened.

"Let's see how your hand is," she requested, shutting off the tap and slowly pulling it towards her to examine it. "It looks a lot better."

"It feels a lot better," he agreed, enjoying the feel of her fingers gripping his palm.

To his surprise, she moved her head forward and lightly kissed the skin next to the burn, right where his fingers joined to his hand. Her lips were cool but left a pleasant burning sensation where they'd been and Fitz was sure his heartbeat had quickened, that his cheeks were flushed.

"That should do it," she declared, smiling fondly at him and gently patting his fingers.

"Thanks," he mumbled, 100% certain that he was thanking her for the kiss, as well as taking care of his burn, but hoping she only thought it was the later.

:O :O :O

:O :O :O

Epilogue

_Lev scurried out of a pile of soot, unscathed, and wound his way out of the wiring, into the loading bay._

_That night, as Fitz, Simmons and Skye left the hangar doors open to gaze at the now clear sky and munch on candy, he tiptoed unseen past them and into the darkness._

:O :O :O

* * *

><p>The Fringe reference is "Don't be afraid to cross the line." It is a note to Walter that William Bell (his BFF mad scientist soulmate, yes, there are two of them) leaves in his Will.<p>

The stuff about galvanism and it's inspiration for Frankenstein is based off a show I saw on the Discovery channel a long time ago and Wikipedia. Also what I remember from school.

The exploding because of having Leviathan parts inside you and not being injured is recycled from another story of mine, Monster Goo. If it worked once, right?


End file.
